Numerous attempts have been made to provide a device for filling containers particularly soluble containers such as capsules.
In general, a device for filling a soluble container such as a capsule comprises the following components:    a) Orienter.    b) Filler.    c) Capsule Tray.    d) Powder tray, Powder spreader & Extractor rod.    e) Tamper unit.
The orienter orients the capsules in such a way that caps remain up & bodies in down position. After this, the capsules are transferred from orienter to capsule tray mounted on filler.
The capsule tray keeps all capsules on filler in vertical position. The cap & body of capsules are separated as sliding sheet holds the capsule bodies firmly against separation force generated by lifting of the capsule tray.
Powder tray and powder spreader are provided to ease filling of powder and other filling materials. A tamper unit is provided to ensure uniform filling.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,321,932 discloses an invention entitled “capsule handling system” wherein the sheet sliding mechanism in the orienter generates more friction due to large contact area and therefore sliding is not smooth. Also, positioning of sheets for orienting the capsules is more or less inconsistent. As regards the filler assembly, two thumb screws are used to operate sliding sheet to hold the capsule bodies during separation of cap and body of the capsules. This is an inconvenient and time consuming operation. For filling capsules of other size, adjustment of height of filler base according to cut length of capsule bodies and therefore appropriate adjustment and setting are required which is also a cumbersome operation.
In a capsule filling machine developed and marketed by a company called Feton®, grub screws are used for setting and holding the sheets with respect to base for orienting the capsules. Further, the stroke length of the orienter sheet in this machine is to be adjusted by a thumb screw. This arrangement is quite cumbersome and requires skill on the part of the operator to achieve the above tasks.
Both the machines as developed by Feton and as disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,321,932 have a closed structure and therefore the operation is not visual and accessibility to jammed capsules becomes difficult.
Further, the above mentioned capsule filling devices are not capable of orienting, separating the cap and body, and filling of capsules which have longer cap length and smaller body length such as double blind capsules.
Other conventional capsule filling machines also suffer from a series of drawbacks either in their configuration and/or function thereby resulting in a poor performance.
Therefore, a need has arisen for requirement of developing a machine which would overcome the drawbacks associated with the existing devices, and which would provide a setting free capsule filling system and which is simple in construction and achieves more efficient performance.
Our inventors, by determined research and intuitive knowledge, for the first time, have introduced a device for filling soluble containers which would provide a setting free capsule filling system and which is simple in construction, easy to operate and achieves more efficient performance than those devices in the state of the art.